He used to be the cute, monotone old dodger in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, followed by a charming stint as a game show host, among stints as a professional academic. But some time along the line, the nasal, droning man we all knew and loved was replaced with Ben Stein mark II. Stein Mark II, if you weren't aware, recently created an incredibly lame documentary supporting "intelligent design," a new "brand" for creationism coined by a think tank named the Discovery Institute to hoist the concept into American classrooms.
I really don't care if you believe in sentient firetrucks, or if you'd like to share that concept with me via a DVD I'll never watch. Dennis Miller decided it would be a good career choice for a comedian to never make a joke about the worst president in American history, support every war and idiotic Bush policy he could get his hands on, then claim he was being railroaded. Like Dennis, when Stein decided it was time to bare his unwashed political underpants with the world, he decided to be a dick about it.
The re-branding of creationism in and of itself reeks of dickishnish, in that it's an act of propaganda warfare coined by people who couldn't win the creationism in the classroom debate the first time. Stein takes it further by creating a Michael Moore-style documentary that railroads his guests by making them look like elitist fops, then tops it off with a light dusting of Joe The Plummer pseudo-every-man-isms, designed to make creationism look like Anton van Leeuwenhoek's attempt to get germs taken seriously.
In Stein's case his entire argument hinges upon the premise that intelligent design people aren't being taken seriously by the scientific community because of some elitist cabal. Stein apparently doesn't stop to think that maybe it isn't being taken seriously because it's not fucking science. Just like Miller didn't stop to think that his career went in the toilet -- not because he was challenging the intellectual elite -- but because he was WRONG.
But I digress. A lovely verbal beat down of Stein this week comes from -- of all places -- movie reviewer Roger Ebert.
"I've been accused of refusing to review Ben Stein's documentary "Expelled," a defense of Creationism, because of my belief in the theory of evolution. Here is my response.
Ben Stein, you hosted a TV show on which you gave away money. Imagine that I have created a special edition of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" just for you. Ben, you've answered all the earlier questions correctly, and now you're up for the $1 million prize. It involves an explanation for the evolution of life on this planet. You have already exercised your option to throw away two of the wrong answers. Now you are faced with two choices: (A) Darwin's Theory of Evolution, or (B) Intelligent Design.
Because this is a special edition of the program, you can use a Hotline to telephone every scientist on Earth who has an opinion on this question. You discover that 99.975 of them agree on the answer (A). A million bucks hangs in the balance. The clock is ticking. You could use the money. Which do you choose? You, a firm believer in the Constitution, are not intimidated and exercise your freedom of speech. You choose (B).
Squaaawk!!! The klaxon horn sounds. You have lost. Outraged, you file suit against the program, charging it is biased and has denied a hearing for your belief. Your suit argues that the "correct" answer was chosen because of a prejudice against the theory of Intelligent Design, despite the fact that .025 of one percent of all scientists support it. You call for (B) to be discussed in schools as an alternative theory to (A). "
I could have sword Ebert was dead, but I think I'm confusing my movie critics.
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